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A financial fiduciary are financial planners, investment advisors, and money managers who hold positions of substantial trust when they invest other peoples’ money. Investors are counting on the fiduciary to be competent, ethical professionals who practice full transparency and always tell them the truth.

Stockbrokers and sales reps are not fiduciaries. They are salesmen who are limited to selling investment products for commissions. And, they are held to a much lower ethical standard called suitability. This deliberately vague standard does not require them to put investor interests first. But, they are supposed to make “suitable” investment recommendations.

So why is there so much confusion? The primary source is sales reps who tell investors they are financial advisors to reduce sales resistance and make it easier to sell investment products. They know investors do not want salesmen investing their assets. Very few investors know the critical differences that separate reps from real advisors. Consequently, they do not ask the right questions and they do not know good answers from bad ones.

As usual the industry wins and investors pay a stiff price. How do reps get away with it? There are no regulations that prevent this deceptive sales practice. And, sales pitches are verbal so there is no record of what was said to gain control of investor assets. The bottom-line…. investors are on their own.

Or, are they? PaladinRegistry.comis loaded with free tools that investors can use to select real advisors for the right reasons, monitor current advisors, and replace under-performing advisors.

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Paladin Advisors

Paladin Registry is an independent, educational resource designed to help investors who rely on financial advisors and financial planners to help them accumulate and preserve assets for retirement. Since 2003 Paladin Registry has been providing retirement planning resources as well as information to assist finding a financial advisor or finding a financial planner. Paladin Registry has been featured in Kiplinger, Business Week, Forbes, The Washington Post, Yahoo Finance and has been seen in numerous other leading financial news and information websites.